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Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

en.wikipedia.org

178 pointsscreamingninja96 comments

There's a list on this page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguistic_example_sen...

The non-english examples section is fun too!

The Czech ambiguity one with 5 words giving 7+ sentence meanings (raising to 58 possible meanings when allowing same syllables but a single word merge) is mind boggling.

I also quite like this punctuation-based one:

    Dear John:

    I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy–will you let me be yours?

    Jane

    Dear John,

    I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

    Yours,

    Jane

Non-English list missing the canonical Hebrew example

שלמה שלמה שלמה שלמה שלמה

(or maybe it doesn't count because it's based on missing punctuation)

And an ancient Greek example - it's all about the 'gap', where you breath/put the comma.

ἥξεις ἀφήξεις, οὐκ ἐν πολέμῳ θνήξεις You go you will return, not die in the war.

ἥξεις ἀφήξεις οὐκ, ἐν πολέμῳ θνήξεις You go you will return not, die in the war.

DEAR JOHN I WANT A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT LOVE IS ALL ABOUT YOU ARE GENEROUS KIND THOUGHTFUL PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT LIKE YOU ADMIT TO BEING USELESS AND INFERIOR YOU HAVE RUINED ME FOR OTHER MEN I YEARN FOR YOU I HAVE NO FEELINGS WHATSOEVER WHEN WERE APART I CAN BE FOREVER HAPPY WILL YOU LET ME BE YOURS JANE

These examples provide a nice illustration how human language evolution optimizes for most common use cases and basically ignores the worst case scenarios.

Quite a bit different from formal languages where even rare worst cases get a lot of attention (or rather they are designed in a way to avoid worst case scenarios at the cost of making the typical scenarios less efficient).

I think the simplest repeating word sentence is using "police". It isn't as impressive since it only employs two meanings rather than three but is much easier to grasp.

Who polices police? Police police. Police police police police.

But then who polices police police? Police police police. Police police police police police police.

Repeat ad infinitum. n-Police police (n-1)-police

Sadly, police demonstrably do not police police.

Because that’s the jurisdiction of the police police. Did you not read the post to which you responded?

No, no. Police don't police police, police police police police.

Police stop staying police.

No. More police police.

When police police police, we sometimes get oversight oversight.

Wenn Fliegen hinter Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen Fliegen nach.

A flea and a fly in a flue. Said the flea: "let us fly", said the fly: "let us flee" and they flew through a flaw in the flue.

In Dutch the word order is a bit better: als achter vliegen vliegen vliegen, vliegen vliegen vliegen achterna.

In german you can also say: Wenn hinter fliegen Fliegen fliegen, fliegen Fliegen fliegen nach. : )

This makes an interesting philosophical point on ethics and self awareness

The wikipedia page listed in another comment makes the point that this also (can) use three meanings, as Police is also a place in Poland.

The police police from Police Poland police the police from Police Poland: Police police police police Police police

What is it called when a word stops making any sense inside your brain temporarily because of over exposure.

Semantic satiation

The translation that let me finally understand this sentence was:

"Buffalo bison that other Buffalo bison bully also bully Buffalo bison."

And from my other comment:

"Mighty bells hearty maidens ring vibrate nearby chairs."

The Wikipedia article also substitutes Buffalonian for Buffalo for an extra bit of clarity.

I collect and maintain a list of examples like this. Usually stuff I see somewhere else or random ones that pop into my head.

My favorite simple one: "Unlike whiskey, you can't water water down."

My favorite long one: "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign"

https://5tephen.com/loopdeloops/

It's longer than that:

    "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?"

  - Martin Gardner

The passage "Wouldn't the sentence 'I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign' have been clearer if quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips?" would sprawl across the page if newlines were placed between the and words, and words and Fish, and Fish and and, and and and between, and between and Fish, and Fish and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and and, and and and Chips, as well as after Chips.

Here's one from comedian Brian Regan: reservation reservation reservation (second thoughts about dinner plans in a Native American community).

I have two ... things ... I don't know if this type of phrase has a technical name.

my minute newt

my migrating grating

The first one is minute as in very small.

The second one the grating referred to a noun (as in diffraction grating), not a verb.

My favorite "word avalanche" is this one:

"James had had had had John had had had had had had had a better effect on the teacher"

With added commas, to aid parsing:

"James had had had had, John had had had - had had had had a better effect on the teacher."

The context being a hypothetical sentence in which either "had" or "had had" were valid constructions. "Had had" was the formulation which the teacher liked best.

It really boggles the brain to see that many repetitions, but I find it easier to parse/explain than the Buffalo one.

Start it off like

> John, whereas James had had "had", had had "had "had"...

and you can get them all together...

You're right - mine was from memory, but this is closer to the original formulation - it's supposed to have been "James while John had had had had ... "

James, while John had had "had had" had had "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had". "had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had had" had had a worse effect on John's computer program because the string buffer wasn't large enough.

In the context of two users putting inputs into a C program that doesn't sanitize user input.

Two strings walk into a bar and sit down. The bartender says, “So what’ll it be?” The first string says, “I think I’ll have a beer quag fulk boorg jdk^CjfdLk jk3s d#f67howe%^U r89nvy~~owmc63^Dz x.xvcu”

“Please excuse my friend,” the second string says, “He isn’t null-terminated.”

A real-life example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1097374

> Thomas Tymoczko has pointed out that there is nothing special about eight "buffalos";[2] any sentence consisting solely of the word "buffalo" repeated any number of times is grammatically correct.

My favorite part of this. Repeated 10 times, for instance, could mean "NY bison NY bison bully bully bison NY bison bully." (The New York bison who are bullied by other NY bison, well they themselves bully some bison whom other NY bison bully.) Any number of times unfurls out of, like, kind of a context-free grammar replacement scheme from a base case:

  "bully bison" -> base case
  "* bison *" -> "* bison bison bully *"
  "* bison *" -> "* NY bison *"

Couple of funny ones in Finnish:

"Kuusi palaa" has at least six different meanings: 1) your moon is burning, 2) pruce tree is burning, 3) number six is burning, 4) a part of something is burning, 5) pruce tree returns, and 6) your moon returns.

"Kokoa kokoon koko kokko!" "Koko kokko kokoonko?" "Koko kokko kokoon!"

Which translates to a conversation between two parties on the building of a bonfire.

Wait, so you’re saying Finns have no way to distinguish between “your moon is burning” and “pruce tree returns”??? No wonder Nokia failed.

Japanese one: 庭(niwa) に(ni) は(wa) 二羽(niwa) 鶏(niwatori) がいる(ga iru)

"There are two chickens in the garden"

It's worth noting that pitch accent matters: LHHLHLLHHHHLH (L: low, H: high, for each mora). It becomes even more important if you remove one set of "niwa", because then you can have two different meanings:

"there are two birds in the garden" (depending on the pitch accent, the order of the words can be different)

"there is a chicken in the garden"

I still find the first noun phrase and relative clause (first 5 buffalo words, Buffalonian bison that Buffalonian bison bully) to be just unparsable. If you switch up the nouns it’s slightly easier to grok:

Vancouver birds Toronto bison bully

But the missing “that” connector in between the two just doesn’t parse in my brain no matter how many times as I read it.

How about:

"Mighty bells hearty maidens ring vibrate nearby chairs."

You can move it slightly closer to see how it starts to line up.

"Mighty bells mighty bells ring ring mighty bells."

Closer...

"Mighty bells mighty bells bell bell mighty bells."

Wow, that is VERY effective reading those outloud one after the other!

I think that is the most effective way of understanding the buffalo phrase “sound” that I’ve seen.

I thought to post it but you can take it a level further.

"Belly bells belly bells bell bell belly bells."

Just realized another one.

"Dear deer dear deer dere dere dear deer."

Thanks; that finally made it click for me!

Should that be / is that clear as: "Mighty bells mighty belles bell bell mighty bells."

("maiden" -> "belle")

I thought about using belle also as an adjective.

"Belle bells belle bells bell bell belle bells."

But I couldn't find it used as an adjective in any dictionaries. I think it works nicely though.

Or......

"Belles' belle bells belles' belle bells bell bell belles' belle bells.

New Poe dropping.

What if the maidens' first names are Belle? They could be Belle belles, adding one?

I'm with you. I understand how it's _meant_ to work, but that's just not how language works in my head. Without `that`, it's just not a sentence to me.

(Yadda yadda, prescriptivism is flawed, etc. Note my "in my head" and "to me" caveats above)

Your comment helped me finally get the original submission, thank you!

But can you parse a sentence like this one? "The train your uncle just missed"

I think it's the same structure. We are just so used to add "that" or "which", but I think with a bit of practice one could omit these filler words and read the sentence just fine. Although I do think that in the Buffalo case it makes it very ambiguous.

Yup the omission of "load-bearing" `that`s causes a lot of parsing ambiguity in many cases, the classic example being garden-path sentences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence

The first issue is the threefold homnym, while the second is the use of a reduced relative clause - i.e. one that is not marked by an explicit relative pronoun or complementizer such as who, which or that [1]. Furthermore, the relative clause here is a restrictive one, so there can be no commas [2].

Reduced relative clauses are OK for conversation, but I tend to limit their use to only the simplest cases when I am writing. Leaving in the initial relative pronoun or complementizer is usually straightforward, but it is sometimes difficult to phrase a sentence so that the end of a restrictive clause is clear.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_relative_clause

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_relative_clauses#Restr...

Will Will Smith smith ? Will Smith will smith.

    Will,

    will Will will Will Will's will?

    – Will

In French: Si ton tonton tond ton tonton, ton tonton tondu sera.

The grammatically correct sentence would swap the two last words, but in French you can take a bit of liberty with the order of the words.

Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday Saturday night's alright.

My favourite one of these is “That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is”, which can take on a few meanings depending on how you distribute the punctuation.

My favourite punctuated form is “That that is, is. That that is not, is not. Is that it? It is.”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/That_that_is_is_that_that_is_n...

No sentence ends in because because because is a conjunction.

But it is easy to understand once you add comma.

In my opinion, deliberately omitting quotation marks is cheating

This particular example is grammatically valid without them, though.

I find the "had had had had..." example above more "cheaty" because that one does need some punctuation which is omitted.

Pretty sure my kids disagree.

"Why did you do that?"

"Just because."

(Okay, maybe it is not a complete sentence, so your point holds.)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36525549 - June 2023 (7 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36460256 - June 2023 (4 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36036855 - May 2023 (5 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22288372 - Feb 2020 (19 comments)

A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." (1999-2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18405860 - Nov 2018 (127 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18391960 - Nov 2018 (6 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11654975 - May 2016 (17 comments)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6785788 - Nov 2013 (4 comments)

A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893813 - Dec 2012 (1 comment)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3340300 - Dec 2011 (1 comment)

A History of the Sentence "Buffalo buffalo..." - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1100073 - Feb 2010 (1 comment)

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1097258 - Feb 2010 (69 comments)

Damn daniel

Two from The Onion:

New Envelope Pushes Envelope Envelope

Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court Rules

It is rarely noted that this sentence only works in American English, where "Buffalo" (with a capital B) is also a place, and "buffalo" (with a minuscule b) is a verb.

Neither of these is true in standard British English or any other regional form, AFAIK.

Buffalo is a place in British English, Japanese, Thai, Indian, etc.

I think you're missing the point.

People from other countries might well not know it's a place.

2 of these are places, 2 are not. Without Googling, which are which?

Taumata whakatangi hangakoauau o tamatea turi pukakapiki maunga horo nuku pokai whenua kitanatahu.

Traa dy Liooar.

Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit.

Zaglabor astragard Hootrimansion Bambriar.

Ah, love this one. I remember the first time I heard of it several years ago. I actually thought about it earlier today, when a few of my uni classmates mentioned to the prof that they were from Buffalo. Didn't speak up and say the monstrous sentence, but maybe I should have. lol

But maybe only the teacher and another other person would understand it and the others would have thought you were having a seizure!

Heard about it for the first time today and already feeling a strange satisfaction: "well if that's what they do, so much that they've become namesake to a verb, then that's very well what they deserve!" Justice at last!

Closest thing I know in German is unexpected in a very different way: "Mähen Äbte? Äbte mähen nie, Äbte beten“ is perfectly clear in the written, but when spoken the words are drawn together more than usual and without context that you might be talking about abbots or mowing, most people will insist that the utterance can't possibly be German at all.

In 4th grade, during religious study we had to work in small groups and write a dialogue for a scene from the bible. My group had the scene when the Arche rans aground as the water sinks. I wrote the sentence “Heißt das, daß das Schiff sinkt?”, meaning “does that mean the ship is sinking?”. Havin 3 “das(ß)” in a row went right over the head of my group mates. That was, apart from horrible (loud) reading speeds, one of the first times I really noticed differences in language expression between my classmates. We were all native speakers, mind you.

A cardinal cardinal Cardinal's cardinal cardinal cardinal sensed the cardinality of the Cardinals.

(An important red priest's important red bird could tell players how many players were on the baseball team.)

My favorite Dutch one seems to work in English as well:

before was was was, was was is

Fast Polish police buffalo

Buffalo polish fast police

Fast buffalo police polish.

(Quick police officers from Poland bully Buffalonian polish-compound dieting overseers immobilized bison police officers shine.)

Contrived, but (I believe) original.

And another I came up with a while back: The lowing-cow Low Cali local yokel Low-Cal Calzone Locale.

<https://old.reddit.com/r/thebutton/comments/318w4j/april_2nd...>

You can also do it with the word Fuck: "Fuck it, the fucking fucker’s fucking fucked." ~as recounted by author Anthony Burgess https://www.anthonyburgess.org/blog-posts/anthony-burgess-on...

Whenever I see this reference it reminds me of: https://i.chzbgr.com/full/8488834304/h1BE216D8/trolling-russ...

I don't speak or write Russian but someone once told me about Russian cursive and yep that looks fun to think about.

My constant source of werid-but-great wikipedia articles:

https://www.instagram.com/depthsofwikipedia/

https://twitter.com/depthsofwiki

Buffalo bison, which Buffalo bison bully, also bully Buffalo bison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_b...

Seems like this shows up four times a year on here. The chinese one is cool too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_...

Reduced relative clauses should only be used when they do not compromise the clarity the sentence, which is not the case here. You can add a "that" or "which" or settle for only 5 "buffalo"

While living in Taiwan, I came up with something like this in the Chinese language:

這麼多多多多少錢？

A 多多 is a small yogurt drink. This roughly translates to “So many 多多s cost how much money?

A french classic (but less impressive) Si mon tonton tond ton tonton, ton tonton sera tondu.

(If my uncle shave your uncle, your uncle will be shaved)

And for deutsch/german

Nach dem stutzen des Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbarts geht der Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbier meist mit den Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbaren in die Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbar zu Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel um sie mit zur Rhabarberbarbarabar zu nehmen um mit etwas Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbier von Rhabarberbarbaras herrlichem Rhabarberkuchen zu essen.

https://www.oezeps.at/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rabarberbar...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3_tRPRt9x8

From my childhood - works, verbally not when written.

1-1 was a race horse, 2-2 was one too. 1-1 won one race - and 2-2 won one too.

Another one in Chinese: 人要是行，干一行行一行，一行行行行行，行行行干哪行都行，要是不行，干一行不行一行，一行不行行行不行，行行不行，干哪行都不行

Am I the only one who just doesn't find this very interesting? I mean it's just a coincidence that "buffalo" is a verb in American English and also a place name, as well as an animal.

I just don't think this leads anywhere interesting.

So if someone came up to you in at a party or any other social environment and said "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" and then walked off, your interest wouldn't be piqued?

No, not really. People do all sorts of crap for all sorts of reasons. Some people are literally insane. Some people do things at your expense. Some people just like to amuse only themselves. And then throw drugs and alcohol in the mix, there isn't much reason to believe that people are always rational actors which have to be taken seriously.

For somebody with a Cognitive Science degree like myself, the interesting place it leads is that it is a grammatically correct sentence which almost every native speaker who is unfamiliar with will claim is not. Why? If we can reason out that it is grammatically correct, but our built in grammar parser will evaluate it as incorrect, what is it we don't understand about the way our brain processes linguistic information?

It’s interesting for several reasons at least:

- It shows “corner cases” in our own human languages where meaning is not clear even when a sentence is grammatically correct. (This possibility is perhaps more obvious to tech people, but a surprise to many)

- It shows how understanding a sentence is so different from reading. When, with some aid, one finally can read the buffalo sentence and understand it, it’s amazing to realize how it “clicks”. As technothrasher said, this is interesting to those understanding how the brain works.

- As others noted, reveals how much of human language is about defaults and convention, and NOT about parsing based in grammar. This was something that had to be learned; early thinkers sometimes assumed that the brain was just a parser.

- For hackers, it’s interesting to find ways to “break” a human language while playing by the rules (grammar).

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

One in Spanish:

«¿Cómo como? Como como, como.»

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo too

--> <bison from Buffalo that bison from Buffalo bully> bully <bison from Buffalo that bison from Buffalo bully>

Bu bu bu bu bu bu bu Bennie and the Jets

Reply on news.ycombinator.com